After the Fall
by papillon2
Summary: A continuation of the Utena story, seen through the eyes of various characters, but not always the ones you'd expect... be sure you have seen the end of the show first!


Disclaimer: I don't own Utena, yadda yadda yadda. As usual, this is just a little short story, not terribly deep (I never get the time to finish the epics, alas!), just a possibility for what happens after the series ends. As for why the title? Um... if there's ever a sequel, I'll explain it then.  
  
  
Artemis  
  
Most people never knew the truth about Himemiya Anthy. Who she was, and what she was, and what she wasn't. The truth was that she wasn't a thousand-year-old witch. She was just a girl, caught up in a story for a while. I know this because I touched her.  
  
And her brother, Akio? He was not an ancient prince, powerful and undying, watching the flowers of youth bend helplessly before him. I know this because I killed him.  
  
Now you're interested.  
  
I didn't notice when Utena left Ohtori Academy. No one did, really. Teenagers are self-centered people. I think, I want, I feel, I am. How long does it take to realise that the empty seat is going to stay empty, that someone isn't ever coming back? Now, if there had been a scandal, if there'd been something to talk about, it never would have been lived down. But leave matters quiet and wait for people to notice on their own, and they never will.  
  
As for me, I didn't notice because she wasn't in my class anyway. She wasn't important to me, not anymore. So I didn't notice. What I noticed was the rose garden. Empty. Anthy was gone.  
  
When the cat's away, the mice will play? Only a very stupid mouse. A mouse with any sense finds out where the beast has gone, immediately.  
  
No one knew anything. They looked at me with blank, stupid eyes when I asked them. Anthy? Who's that? A friend of yours? Say, are you busy Saturday? You could bring your friend.  
  
So I slipped out between classes and climbed the stairs to Akio's tower, stepping softly. I like to surprise people. They're more truthful when they're surprised.   
  
This time, I don't think he would have heard me anyway. The door to his study was cracked open, and he was seated at a desk, a candle flickering weakly beside him. It was midday, and from the wax spattered across the wood, that tiny stub had been burning for a long time. His hair was lank, greasy. I could smell his familiar sweat across the room.   
  
I pushed the door open, silently, and the light of the hall behind me cast my shadow upon his wall. It was that shadow he responded to, not me. He leapt from his chair, eyes angry and delighted - and then only disappointed, when he saw who it was that had intruded. "You," he sighed. Then, with a snap, "What do you want?"  
  
I walked past him, my hips swaying. He wasn't even watching. Direct approach, then. "Where is Himemiya Anthy?"  
  
Akio, the suave object of lust for half the school (girls and boys), snorted. "What do you care? Our bargain is completed. She will never touch your brother now."  
  
She would never have touched him anyway, not with me in the way. But... never? Really gone, then. Dead? It was then that my eyes caught sight of a glint on Akio's desk. A pair of glasses, neatly folded. Anthy's. Fake, like the rest of her. I swept them to the floor with a casual gesture and hopped up onto the broad wooden surface, my legs slightly apart. "The witch is gone," I confirmed, "and he hasn't even noticed." My sweet, innocent, beautiful twin brother was not one to forget an infatuation that easily.   
  
"Isn't that what you wanted?" Akio asked. He wasn't even looking at me. He looked different. Thinner, yes, but shorter as well. Features less refined. Even with a good bath, he couldn't be as handsome as he'd been before. He was fading.  
  
"I wanted her dead," I admitted, to see if this would shock him. Still no response. "I would have killed her." Nothing. I leaned forward, cleavage out, bracing my hands against the edge of the desk, between my open legs. The Akio I'd known couldn't have resisted that. "Now she's gone, and no one has blamed me." Or even noticed, but I wanted his focus on me, not the other students.  
  
He did look at me now. "Be satisfied with your good fortune."  
  
"Satisfaction leads to complacency." Yes, I can use words with more than four letters in them. "Complacency leads to downfall." And with that, I pinched the weak, guttering candle flame between my fingers and felt it die. "I am never satisfied. I repeat, where is Himemiya Anthy?"  
  
He turned away from me, staring out the window as if there were anything to see. The window was patterned with a stained-glass rose, and practically opaque, but I knew the direction it faced. Out the gate, and away from Ohtori. "It's no use," he said, as if he hadn't already given me half an answer. "I'm no longer interested in your offering."  
  
So. Anthy was gone for good, but not dead. And it clearly wasn't Akio's doing. He was losing control. Why hadn't anyone noticed? I slipped off the desk, quiet as a mouse. "Tell me what I want to know, or I'll report you," I threatened, more to see what he'd say than anything else.  
  
He laughed, once. "Report that I was with you, Kozue-chan? Who would you report it to, that hasn't done the same? No one will care."  
  
Idiot. Sleeping with the faculty gave me more power, not less. "Only your fiancee and my brother," I replied sweetly. "But they will care that you were with Touga, don't you think?" Is there anything left of a man in you, Akio? Will you defend Kanae, or mock her? Will you hunt for an explanation, or threaten me? Will you hear my footsteps creeping closer?  
  
Akio only sighed. Frustrated, weary, and powerless. "Don't you understand? There is no bargain for us to make. Anthy is gone, and I have no use for you."  
  
"Nor I for you," I said, and shoved.  
  
Did I mean to do it? Oh, yes. I meant it. He was a terrible, hateful thing, you see. He used people, corrupted them, broke them. He was despicable. He had become weak. He was the last remnant of an old regime, and it was time for him to get out of the way.   
  
His body knew it. He was dying inside, without Anthy, without the power that had made him into something more than a man. How could I, a fragile little girl like me, overpower a man like that and send him crashing through a heavy stained-glass window and down all the way to the cold, hard stones, if he hadn't helped me?  
  
He wanted it.  
  
I'm good at giving people what they want.  
  
Being what they want, now, that's a different story. That's what Anthy was, you see. Whatever anyone else wanted. She wasn't born like that. She was just a girl, an ordinary spindly girl, who went to bed with her brother and liked it and couldn't deal with it. Neither of them could. So they became people in a story, because that was easier. He was the Prince of all Princes, and so it was okay for her to love him because all girls had to love him. And she was the Witch, the temptress, the embodiment of desire, and so it was okay for him to fuck her and to hurt her, because everyone else did it too.   
  
I knew about the Rose Bride. I saw the duel, remember? I made Miki fight Utena, and I made sure he lost. And I touched Anthy, there in the car, and that's when I found the truth. The Rose Bride wasn't something she was. It was something she wore, like a dress. It was a role she fit into.  
  
So she left. Good for her. I might have killed her if she'd stayed. I wished her well.  
  
And without her, Akio was nothing. Less than nothing.  
  
They might have asked questions. Someone might have even realised I'd been missing when Ohtori Akio-san fell to his death. If they had, I could have told them that he'd tried to rape me and I'd struggled and it was so terrible that I just couldn't talk about it and then Miki would put his arms around me and demand that they leave me alone and everything would have been all right. But they didn't ask. I didn't really think they would. Akio was a loose end. His time was up.   
  
There's always a Prince. There's always a Witch. Someone else will take their place.  
  
Do you think I'd make a good Rose Bride?  
  
I could have been a Duelist. I could have fought to defend the honor and the innocence of my beloved brother from all the people who'd just love to pluck him from my tree. But there's a difference between me and the Duellists - I'm not stupid.*  
  
Anthy and Akio would have been just fine if they'd simply accepted their relationship for what it was. They were weak. I am not weak. I have had many lovers, and none of them were princes. I am not a princess, and I am not a witch. I love my brother, but I know precisely why, and it has nothing to do with fairytales.  
  
So, Utena left the school, and Anthy left the school, and Akio is dead, and Kanae killed herself - no, it wasn't me that time - and Miki won't be on the Student Council next year, and the slate is clean, until the next time around.  
  
Satisfied? No. I am never satisfied.  
  
  
  
  
(* - Yes, I know she fought in the Black Rose arc, but everyone forgot the Black Rose arc after it happened, so *she* doesn't know that.) 


End file.
